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The Starbound Trilogy Review
The Starbound Trilogy was overall a good series with a good portion both science fiction and romance like it was advertised. It has a consistent theme of two people who become stuck in a crisis of sorts like the crash of the Icarus in These Broken Stars, the Avon Crisis where the terrorist cell Fianna wrecks havoc across the planet and the famous Avon Broadcast is sent for the Galactic Council to hear for Avon’s independence in This Shattered World, and the successful attempt to expose and take down LaRoux Industries in Their Fractured Light by the couples Tarver Merendsen, a hardened war hero when also happened to be the commanding officer of Jubilee Chase, the female protagonist of This Shattered World and Lilac LaRoux, the daughter of the richest and most powerful man in the galaxy and harbours guilt of indirectly sending a young boy to die, Flynn Cormac, the former rebel leader whose sister fought in the last Avon Insurrection and was executed by the military, one who fights for the freedom of Avon by off-world occupiers, and Jubilee Chase, a young captain of the military who is kidnapped by Flynn, but is helped escaped after Flynn began to sympathise with her and witnessing brutal murders of innocent civilians by his rebel cell leader, and in the last instalment of the series, Gideon Marchant, an eighteen year old hacker who’s father and mother were both killed by LaRoux Industries and Sofia Quinn, a conn artist who has a deep hatred for LaRoux Industries who took both her parents. The characters from each book normally would hate each other and this behaviour slowly becomes better throughout the books, until they are in love with each other. Although I like this format, it does make the book progress very slowly and thus, many readers drop out of the book around halfway. The books also are intentionally vague, making a mysterious atmosphere. This is great for dedicated readers but for casual viewers, this can make the books difficult to understand and make heads or tails of. The books are very slow to begin but when you reach the last Quadrant, the action becomes better and the romantic part is fleshed out more. It also sheds some light on the mysteries in the story, such as the visions in the first book, explained by the Whispers interacting with the main characters, the Fury illness of the second books, being caused by the Whispers again attempting to cause as much havoc on the outside world as possible as revenge of their enslavement by the LaRoux Industries. The third book revolves around the blue rings of light that appeared on the planet of the Icarus crash, Avon, the world that This Shattered World is set on, Verona, the homeworld of Jubilee Chase, and Corinth, the center of the galaxy and the location of the headquarters of LaRoux Industries, a corporation that had been known to experiment on non-corporeal life forms that are native to hyperspace. The books have several flaws, like the mysterious writing of the books which sometimes contradicts themselves. The book is difficult to follow unless you are the most dedicated reader and even dedicated readers have to read the books more than once. This is also a good thing with the books as it has many hidden meanings and intriguing side stories. The book also has many sub-stories at the start of each chapter. These Broken Stars depicts the interrogation of Tarver Merendsen, This Shattered World depicts the relationship that Jubilee and Flynn had during their childhood, which was hinted in the blurb. Their Fractured Light tells the tail of the discovery of the wisps and the eventual enslavement. The book tells the tale from both protagonist’s point of view and creates more mysteries instead of shedding light and makes the books go very slowly. The trilogy, although it had some action and romance, was very difficult to go through. The extremely short chapters were also a problem as most of them were short and didn’t tell much. The books didn’t have many normal chapters with most being too long or too short. There were many gaps in the story and when I analysed the terrain that the story is set on, it was contradicting. It also never answered what happened to Earth as it was said that it was abandoned but humans were a galaxy spanning race. It would be understandable if Earth was abandoned after a freak accident but lots of the characters still reference Earth accents and Earth technology such as combustion weapons. Flynn, the male protagonist of This Shattered World even admits that he has an Irish accent and references his Irish background even though after it should be eons after Earth was abandoned since humans are much more advanced and their territories are much larger. If Earth was abandoned recently, then humans wouldn’t be as advanced as they are. A likely explanation for this is that humans are already an advanced civilisation and that Earth was rendered uninhabitable by an accident or experimentation but neither of those would be plausible as Sol is a stable star and shouldn’t have different output of energy. A red giant explanation is not plausible as well as humans should be an extragalactic power by now, encountering more sentient species or extinct. The experiment explanation is also not plausible as disastrous experiments would definitely be kept away from Earth as it would mean destruction of the homeworld if it went wrong. The Starbound Trilogy has many flaws and plot holes in it that should be answered or at least taken care of. The mode of superluminal travel is also very boring and unoriginal. The use of hyperspace has been used in countless science fiction and fantasy stories. To be honest, the writers of The Starbound Trilogy could have had better ideas to faster-than-light travel such as Alcubierre drives, negative inertial mass, wormholes, just to name a few. These could easily be incorporated into the plot and shows lazy thinking to just use an implausible and unoriginal form of travel. It also never explains whether the Daedalus was an orbital platform or a full on starship as in Their Fractured Light. Sophia describes it as a museum for the crash of the Icarus many other characters say that it is an orbital platform but many others say it is a starship. The way Sophia and Gideon use the Daedalus as a starship, piloting it which it explodes afterwards, with the two in escape pods before the explosion. The trilogy delves deep into real life problems, such as the secrets and corruption of certain corporations, the essential ness of a stable and proper government, the effects of censorship, and many more. The Starbound Trilogy is definitely a trilogy for the most keen readers, having many mysteries and side stories in plain sight. I strongly recommend this trilogy to no one but the best and most dedicated readers. 8/10